Enhanced Movement
You have a special form of movement. When you use the Move Action or certain other actions which grant you Moves, you may spend those Moves on your special form of movement, rather than moving normally. For each rank in this FX, choose one of the following: * Burrowing: For two Moves, you can burrow through the through soil and sand, leaving a tunnel behind if you choose. Burrowing through hard clay and packed earth requires two ranks. Burrowing through harder materials requires the Penetrating extra applied to your ranks in Speed for burrowing (see below). The tunnel you leave behind is either permanent or collapses behind you immediately (your choice when you begin burrowing each new tunnel). * Leaping: For one Move, you can make prodigious leaps. For one rank, you count as being one Size category larger for the purpose of jumping with Athletics. For two ranks, you count as being two Size categories larger for the purpose of jumping. For three ranks, you count as five Size categories larger for the purpose of jumping. Unlike other special forms of movement, the Speed form of Enhanced Movement doesn't actually make you leap faster, but instead allows you to leap greater distances. However, at three ranks, you may apply ranks of Speed to your Leaping. Each rank of Speed you take allows you to take an additional Move while leaping. You ignore Difficult Terrain that may cost you additional Moves while you are leaping, as you can jump right over it, or at least into it. * Flight: You can soar through the air as easily as most people walk on the ground. Your flight is clumsy or may require a platform which carries you. If you suffer any knockback while flying or you are Subdued by someone standing on the ground, you're knocked off or pulled down and cannot fly. You can regain the use of your flying platform by reactivating your Flight FX (which may require a Focus check, depending on circumstances). For one rank, it costs two Moves to fly one normal Move. For two ranks, you can fly with only one Move. You may buy an additional rank to fly with agility and not risk being knocked or pulled out of the sky. You may take ranks in Speed to move more quickly, but need the Fast Flight extra on your Speed ranks (see below). * Gliding: For one Move, you're able to float, if not quite fly as if you were self-propelled. For one rank, you can move through the air at full speed. For every two Zones you move, decrease your Altitude by one Zone. While gliding, you cannot gain altitude without outside help, like updrafts and thermals (at the GM’s discretion). GMs may wish to limit your maximum ranks in Speed for Gliding to 4, since gliders tend to lack self-propulsion. * Levitation: You're able to hover, but you cannot fly beyond raising and lowering yourself. For one rank, you can spend one Move to upwards or downwards in Altitude through the air at your normal speed. GMs may wish to limit your maximum ranks in Speed for levitation to 4, to represent the limitations levitation presents. * Permeate: You can pass through solid objects as if they weren't there. For one rank, passing through a physical object cost three Moves. For two ranks, it costs two Moves to move through a physical object. For three ranks, you can move through solid objects for only one Move. To pass through particularly large objects (ones that are larger than a single Zone), you may still need multiple Moves to cross the object. Essentially, if it would take one Move to cross the object normally, it costs there times that to use Permeate Rank 1, twice that to use Permeate Rank 2, and the normal number of Moves at Permeate Rank 1. You cannot breathe while inside a solid object, so you need Immunity to Suffocation or you have to hold your breath. You may also need Enhanced Senses (such as X-Ray Vision) to see where you’re going. Permeate is often Limited to a particular substance (like earth, ice, or metal, for example) as a –1 Flaw (reducing base cost to 1 point per rank). Permeate provides no protection against attacks, even against materials you can pass through, although you do gain total Cover while inside an object. * Slithering: For one Move, you can move along the ground while prone instead of crawling. You suffer no penalties for making attacks while prone. * Slow Fall: As long as you are capable of action, you can fall any distance without harm. You can also stop your fall at any point so long as there is a handhold or projection for you to grab (such as a ledge, flagpole, branch, etc.). If you have the Wall-Crawling FX (see following), then any surface provides you with a handhold. Slow Fall assumes you are capable of reacting to your circumstances; for the ability to fall any distance without harm whether you are capable of action or not, take Immunity to Falling Damage for 5 points. * Space Flight: For one Move, you're able to propel yourself through the vacuum of space, though you aren't protected against the hazards of space travel. For that, see the Immunity FX. * Swinging: For one Move, you can swing through the air at full speed, using a swing-line you provide or available lines and projections (tree limbs, flagpoles, vines, telephone- and power-lines, etc.). * Swimming: You can move through the water or similar liquid with tremendous ease. You move at full speed through the water at one rank (no Athletics check for swimming required). * Sure-Footed: You're better able to deal with obstacles and obstructions to movement. Reduce the Movement penalty for Difficult Terrain by one Move for each application of this effect. If you reduce the movement penalty to 0 or less, you are unaffected by that condition and move at full speed. * Trackless: You leave no trail and cannot be tracked using visual senses (although you can still be tracked using scent or other means). You step so lightly you can walk across the surface of soft sand or even snow without leaving tracks and you have total concealment from tremorsense (see Enhanced Senses). This FX may be Limited to particular types of terrain. Trackless costs 2 points per rank. * Wall-Crawling: For two moves, you can climb walls and ceilings as Difficult Terrain with no chance of falling and no need for an Athletics skill check. You still count as Flat-Footed lose your Defense ranks while climbing unless you have 5 or more ranks of Athletics (or a +5 modifier to climbing). An additional rank of Enhanced Movement applied to this effect means you climb for one Move and retain your Defense ranks while climbing. A third rank in Wall-Crawling allows you to "stick" to surfaces with any part of your body, rather than just your hands and feet (so you could, for example, hang from a ceiling by the top of your head, or stick your back to a wall to leave your arms and legs free). Wall-Crawling may be Limited to particular kinds of surfaces (metal, stone, wood, etc.) as a –1 flaw. It may also be Limited to only while moving. Wall-Crawling costs 2 points per rank. * Water Walking: You can move or stand on the surface of water, quicksand, and other liquids without sinking. Water Walking may be Limited to only while moving (making it more "Water Running"). Water walking costs 2 points per rank. Increasing Enhanced Movement Speed * Speed: One form of movement you already possess (walking/running for most creatures, but some other creatures might be natural swimmers; flight speed is more expensive to increase, see Extras below) gains one additional Move while using the Move Action. Each additional rank increases your speed, granting you an additional Move when using a Move action (for a total of twenty-two moves at rank 20). Speed costs 1 point per rank. * Fast Flight: Fast Flight applies only to the Flight form of Enhanced Movement, granting the normal benefits of Speed (one additional Move per rank), but costs 2 points per rank instead of 1. Extras When applying modifiers to Enhanced Movement, you can apply the modifier(s) to just one rank of the FX, some of them, or all of them, depending on which movement mode(s) you want to modify. So it’s possible, for example, to make Dimensional Movement Unreliable while having Permeate Affect Others and applying no modifiers to Sure-Footed. The GM should approve any distribution of modifiers to Enhanced Movement. As usual, the total cost of the FX cannot be reduced below 1 character point. * Affects Others: This extra, applied to one or more of your movement modes, allows you to take "passengers" along with you, granting them the benefits of your movement mode(s) so long as they are in close-contact with you (or within range, if you add the Increased Range extra to the FX as well). This extra is particularly common for Dimensional and Temporal Movement (often Affects Others and Area). * Attack FX: Dimensional and Temporal Movement can apply this modifier, allowing you to send an unwilling target into another dimension or time! Since both options have relatively fixed costs, the GM may allow additional ranks in Dimensional or Temporal Attack to increase the FX’s resistance DC: 2 character points per additional rank. Like other FX with the Attack extra, these Attacks are touch range by default, making them ranged is a +1 extra and perception range is a +2 extra. * Extended Duration: Continuous duration Enhanced Movement operates even when the character is stunned, unconscious, or otherwise unable to sustain it (once it has been activated, of course). The user may remaining hanging in space, or safely inside of an object she is permeating, or hanging from something he was swinging from. Alternatively, the character might be slowly and safely deposited on a surface capable of supporting him. * Flash Step (Fixed +1): Fast characters can often move so quickly that slower characters have trouble spotting them. A character with this extra moves quickly enough to gain partial Concealment against all forms of vision. This concealment is conditional: only characters with fewer ranks of Speed (including Speed applied to other forms of Enhanced Movement) treat you as concealed. After resolving any attack against any character, you no longer count as being Concealed. You may activate Flash Step at a cost of one Move, and may only activate it once per turn (so you cannot Flash Step, attack an enemy, then Flash Step again). * Penetrating: Some super-hard materials may be considered Impervious to Burrowing, in which case this extra allows you to dig through them, provided your Penetrating rank reduces the material’s Impervious Toughness to equal to your less than your Burrowing rank or your ranks in Speed (whichever you choose to apply Penetrating to). Flaws * Distracting: A clumsy or uncertain form of movement might suffer from this flaw, losing your Defense ranks while moving at hightened speed. * Decreased Duration: Concentration Duration Enhanced Movement can represent an effect requiring additional focus or effort on the character's part; you can fly or pass through matter, but can't do much else at the same time. A useful Enhanced Movement FX cannot have a duration less than concentration. * Forward Only (Fixed -1): You cannot back up while using your Enhanced Movement; you can only move straight ahead. This makes it difficult to move with great precision in combat, and it costs you one additional Move to return to a Zone or move Adjacent to a landmark you've already been to this turn. * Increased Action: Enhanced Movement cannot have its action reduced below one, since it requires a one action to use the FX. * Low Ceiling (Fixed -1 / -3): If your movement enables you to leave the ground, you cannot gain much altitude, remaining fairly close to the ground. A ceiling (maximum altitude) of one Zone (about 30 feet) is a -1 point flaw, and the character is always in range for Close Range attacks without penalty. If your movement cannot climb beyond 5 feet and thus is almost always in range for Touch Range attacks, then it is a -3 point flaw. This flaw is suitable for "hovercraft" type flight and similar effects. * Minimum Speed (Fixed -1): While flying, you must move no less than half your maximum number of Moves or you "stall" and begin falling or get stuck. You can restart your Movement for one action unless circumstances prevent it (including other Flaws). You can't hover while in flight. * Reduced Load (Fixed -1 / -2): If you cannot carry more than a medium load while moving, you have a Fixed -1 Flaw. If you cannot carry more than a light load, you have a Fixed -2 Flaw. * Runway Required (Fixed -1): Some flying effects might require a level runway to take off and land, a number of Zones in length equal to your normal number of Moves with flight. You can't take off or land vertically or hover. * Wide Turns (Fixed -2): You cannot execute a greater than 45 degree turn per Move while flying, although you can slow your flying speed while turning in order to make tighter turns, if you wish. It costs you 2 Moves to Engage in melee or move adjacent to a landmark within a Zone, as directing yourself with that precision takes very wide, banking turns. A combination of Minimum Speed and Wide Turns means you can only bank widely at best. Associated FX * Quickness: While Speed covers moving quickly, the Quickness FX handles performing tasks faster, and the two often go together. Movement FX Category:Rulebook Category:Characters Category:FX Category:Movement FX